SenseTime makes surveillance software with AI technology for local authorities, and has just received a new tranche of funding worth more than 485 million euros.
Artificial intelligence is becoming popular, and is already used in a variety of tasks, but one of the most successful is also one of the most frightening: automated surveillance.
In this particular case I am talking about a Chinese startup, SenseTime, which makes surveillance software with AI technology for local authorities, and has just received a new tranche of funding worth more than 485 million euros.
The funding, led by giant Alibaba, reportedly gives SenseTime a total valuation of more than 36.5 billion euros, making it the most valuable artificial intelligence startup in the world, according to analyst firm CB Insights.
This news is significant for several reasons. First, it shows how China continues to invest money in artificial intelligence, both through government funding and through private investment. Many are watching the competition between China and the US to develop cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence with great interest and see investment as an important measure of progress. China has surpassed the US in this field, although most experts prefer to take a cautious stance, saying it is only a metric of success.
Second, the investment shows that image analysis is one of the most lucrative commercial applications for artificial intelligence. SenseTime became profitable in 2017 and claims to have more than 400 customers and partners.
This startup sells its services to improve the camera applications of smartphone manufacturers, such as OPPO and Vivo; to provide "beautifying" effects and filters on Chinese social networks like Weibo; and to provide identity authentication for domestic finance and applications such as Huanbei and Rong360.
Most notably, SenseTime also equips Chinese police with facial recognition and tracking services. For example, the company says that the software it provides for the Guangzhou Security Agency (one of China's three largest cities with a metropolitan population of about 25 million) is used to compare crime scene surveillance images with photos of a criminal database. So far more than 2,000 suspects have been identified and "almost 100 cases" have been resolved.
Justin Niu, a partner at IDG, one of SenseTime's top investors, told The Financial Times that "SenseTime and its competitors can grow so fast compared to other parts of the world because video surveillance is big business in China. There is a huge budget for them to manage society".
According to Bloomberg, SenseTime is currently developing software called Viper that will "analyze data from thousands of live camera feeds" and will be used by police to "trace everything from illegal gambling to accidents to even suspects on blacklists".
Proponents of privacy and freedom of expression say that China is already using similar technology to track down and persecute political opponents, and warns that increased surveillance by artificial intelligence can mean the death of privacy. SenseTime co-founder Xu Li told Bloomberg that the company's technology "will not affect privacy because only authorized people can access it".
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